A French firefighter responds to a flare-up to prevent the fire from reigniting in the Fontainebleau Forest, in Noisy-sur-Ecole, France. Photograph: Simon Wohlfahrt/AFP/Getty Images
Figures come as large parts of southern Europe endure another record-breaking period of extreme temperatures
France recorded more than 5,700 excess deaths during its June heatwave, authorities have said, as swathes of southern Europe continue to endure another record-breaking period of extreme temperatures.
The French national health agency said on Wednesday that it had recorded 5,764 excess deaths between 17 June and 2 July, an excess mortality rate of 36%.
More than half of the “unprecedented” total were recorded between 25 and 27 June, with deaths of people aged 75 and older accounting for about two-thirds of the excess mortality, the agency said.
…
The announcement came as firefighters in Spain battled one of the country’s largest ever wildfires, which has burned about 32,000 hectares (79,000 acres) in the Guadalajara region north of Madrid, forcing the evacuation of 1,200 people from 34 villages in the sparsely populated area and confinement orders in 14 others.
Authorities said on Wednesday that the fire was beginning to stabilise, and residents of five villages were allowed to return home. The prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, said on a visit to the area that Spain had already suffered 22 major wildfires so far this year, four times more than in the same period last year.
Neo-Fascist Climate Science Denier Donald Trump says Burn, Baby, Burn.Nigel Farage urges you to ignore facts and reality and be a climate science denier like him and his Deputy Richard Tice. He says that Reform UK has received £Millions and £Millions from the fossil fuel industry to promote climate denial and destroy the planet.Donald Trump urges you to be a Climate Science denier like him. He says that he makes millions and millions for destroying the planet, Burn, Baby, Burn and Flood, Baby, Flood.
Barren, salt-damaged soil in a sunflower field in Scardovari, north-east Italy. Low water levels and prolonged hot, dry conditions in the Po delta are threatening irrigation supplies and crops. Photograph: Piero Cruciatti/Anadolu/Getty Images
Analysis shows how heatwaves are making atmosphere thirstier, damaging water supplies, food production and power generation
Extreme heat supercharged by the climate crisis is sucking Europe dry in summer and intensifying the drought hitting the continent, a scientific analysis has found.
Record-breaking heatwaves meant the hot atmosphere strongly evaporated water from rivers, lakes, soils and plants – conditions made 80 times more likely by global heating in western Europe and 40 times more likely in eastern Europe, the study showed. The level of soil dryness in the west was made five times more likely by the pollution from fossil fuels in the west, and 11 times more likely in the east.
Droughts have usually been linked to low rainfall, but western Europe’s most recent winter was a wet one. The scientists said the climate crisis was redefining drought in Europe, with high temperatures the key factor this summer. Today’s drought in western Europe is classified as “extreme” but would have been “moderate” in the world before the climate crisis, according to the analysis.
…
Deadly wildfires have raged through Spain and France and farmers have been hit hard, facing some of the driest soils on record. About 9m tonnes of grain are expected to be lost across Europe, with the worst maize harvest in 50 years expected in France, and Romanian farmers losing over a million hectares of crops.
Rivers are running low across Europe, cutting the generation of clean hydropower and restricting cargo ships. The Rhine at Lobith in the Netherlands is now lower than the minimum level seen in the hot summer of 1976. The scientists warned that this disruption could push up the price of food and energy, hitting low-income households hardest.
Neo-Fascist Climate Science Denier Donald Trump says Burn, Baby, Burn.Nigel Farage urges you to ignore facts and reality and be a climate science denier like him and his Deputy Richard Tice. He says that Reform UK has received £Millions and £Millions from the fossil fuel industry to promote climate denial and destroy the planet.Donald Trump urges you to be a Climate Science denier like him. He says that he makes millions and millions for destroying the planet, Burn, Baby, Burn and Flood, Baby, Flood.
A woman uses an umbrella to try to cope with the scorching heat in London on 8 July. Rasid Necati Aslim/Anadolu via Getty Images
For months, ministers have refused to publish a report on how climate crisis will affect the UK. Burnham must release it
The past two months have seen exceptionally hot weather across much of Western Europe, with even the UK witnessing record temperatures. Even now, England and Wales are well into their third heatwave this year, with some areas on their 13th consecutive day of temperatures above 30°C.
More than 2,700 people are thought to have died as a result of the extreme heat in England and Wales, with scientists estimating that 440 people died during each of the three peak days of June’s record-breaking heatwave, when temperatures reached 37.7°C.
The situation was perhaps best summarised by the Met Office’s State of the UK Climate report for 2025, published last week: “What we used to think of as extreme, we increasingly see as normal.”
Introducing the report, its lead author, climate information scientist Mike Kendon, notes that “2025 was the UK’s warmest year on record, the sixth time this record has been broken in the 21st century so far”. He adds: “The latest 10-year period (2016-2025) is 1.33°C warmer than the period from 1961-1990”.
In these elevated temperatures, wildfires are a particular concern. This week, local authorities across France cancelled many Bastille Day events to minimise fire risks, not least from firework displays, and in the UK there were fears about what are becoming known as “firewaves”. Less cold winters mean more vegetation earlier in the spring, which, when dried out by heatwaves like those seen this year, increases the risk of wildfires. Last Tuesday, emergency services dealt with 19 such fires, including two major incidents, according to the National Fire Chiefs Council.
Speaking to the Guardian, Maria Barbosa of the UK Centre for Ecology and Hydrology said: “What we are witnessing is climate change actively rewriting the vulnerability of the British landscape.” Perhaps the key element to draw out here is that this is not a change likely to affect us in the future; it is happening now.
Moreover, it relates to one of the surprising elements of the June heat: a public disconnect in the UK between acceptance of climate breakdown and relating this to carbon dioxide emissions from burning coal, oil or gas. People seemed unwilling or unable to make this link, even with the widespread personal experience of heat, the risk of wildfires and those reports of thousands of deaths.
One explanation is that many of our biggest media outlets often fail to point to the connection.
Researchers at the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit reviewed 2,500 news reports on the heatwaves from the nine main national daily newspapers, finding that nearly three-quarters made no mention of climate breakdown. The Financial Times was most likely to mention the climate crisis, doing so in 50 of its 78 articles on the heatwaves, while The Sun was least likely to do so – making the link in only four of its 69 articles.
All too often, the reports gave the impression that the main challenge regarding the heatwaves will be adapting to the “new normal” of a hotter world, with plenty of coverage on changing our behaviour, converting buildings and being prepared for new health concerns.
But the challenge we face goes way beyond that. Adapting to a world where average temperatures are 2.5°C above current levels might be possible at considerable cost and human suffering, but unless we also cut carbon dioxide emissions, then we will have to keep on adapting to ever-higher temperatures. Concentrating on current adaptation alone is barely half the answer.
This is a known issue within government and is causing such concern that publicity is unwelcome, as shown by events relating to a study prepared by the Joint Intelligence Committee, which was officially described as a “national security assessment” and titled somewhat ominously: Global biodiversity loss, ecosystem collapse and national security.
The study was supposed to be launched at a landmark event on 9 October last year, but was held back, with one source telling The Guardian that insiders “feared it was being suppressed because the government was unwilling to face the issues raised.”
After pressure from MPs, including the official environmental audit committee, and Freedom of Information requests to publish the report, the government eventually released a redacted 14-page version in January this year. It warns of a high probability that the UK’s national security, financial prosperity and food security will come under threat from the climate crisis and the subsequent collapse of vital ecosystems that support food production.
Even that makes for very sober reading. The report identifies nine “planetary boundaries” as the safe limits identified for human pressure on nine Earth system processes crucial to maintaining a stable planet, such as climate change, biosphere integrity and oceanic acidification. Six have already been crossed.
The report concludes that ecosystem degradation is occurring across all global regions and every critical ecosystem is on a “pathway to collapse”, which it helpfully defines as “irreversible loss of function beyond repair”.
The implications are huge. This is an official government study by the combined intelligence agencies, and even if redacted, it is unable to hide the crisis ahead. One conclusion is obvious: if this is the greatest threat to our security and the integrity of the global ecosystem, we should be redirecting money away from conventional military spending and towards human and environmental security.
A key requirement of Andy Burnham as incoming prime minister should be the immediate release of the full report, followed by a vigorous public debate on where we go from here.
Donald Trump urges you to be a Climate Science denier like him. He says that he makes millions and millions for destroying the planet, Burn, Baby, Burn and Flood, Baby, Flood.Nigel Farage urges you to ignore facts and reality and be a climate science denier like him and his Deputy Richard Tice. He says that Reform UK has received £Millions and £Millions from the fossil fuel industry to promote climate denial and destroy the planet.Orcas comment on killer apes destroying the planet by continuing to burn fossil fuels.
Nigel Farage explains that he’s called another byelection in Clacton-on-Sea because he should be able to secretly enrich himself without scrutiny and accountabilty and that the rules shouldn’t apply to him.
The Reform leader pocketed major sums from second jobs and donor gifts.
Reform UK leader Nigel Farage amassed £2.3 million in income and gifts during his first two years in Parliament, DeSmog can report.
On 7 July, Farage announced that he would be resigning as Clacton’s MP in order to trigger a by-election. The Reform leader has been under investigation by Parliament’s standards commissioner over the £5 million undeclared gift that he accepted from billionaire crypto investor Christopher Harborne, the party’s biggest donor, before the 2024 general election.
DeSmog’s calculations indicate that, during his two years as Clacton’s MP, he accepted more than £2.3 million in external income and gifts, including over £720,000 from the right-wing broadcaster GB News, and more than £770,000 from the metals trading company Gold Bullion. That’s equivalent to £3,151 a day, or £22,000 a week.
Farage’s declaration of interests also shows that he received at least £85,000 in gifts from Harborne, as well as more than £39,000 from convicted fraudster George Cottrell, who also gave undeclared gifts and support to Farage in the year prior to the 2024 election.
The £2.3 million received by Farage has been on top of his roughly £98,000-a-year public salary. DeSmog revealed last week that Farage has only mentioned Clacton twice in Parliament during the past year.
“The government urgently needs to impose tougher limits on MPs’ second jobs,” Kamila Kingstone, a senior campaign lead at Spotlight on Corruption, previously told DeSmog, “so that the public can be confident that their representatives are working in the public interest rather than to line their own pockets.”
Farage’s plan to reset the narrative by forcing a by-election – his attempt to prove that voters are on his side – appears to have backfired. All the major parties have withdrawn from the contest, leaving the Reform leader to fight the by-election against Count Binface, a comedian dressed as a space-travelling bin.
Public concern over the gifts Farage has received from donors also appears to be growing. New polling from YouGov found that 40 percent of Reform’s own voters see Farage as sleazy, matched by 73 percent of the public as a whole.
Public First polling also shows that 44 percent of voters disagree with Farage that he is a victim of the political establishment, compared to 28 percent who believe he is.
“Nigel Farage is a multi-millionaire who is out for himself and working for the interests of his super-rich friends,” a Green Party spokesperson previously told DeSmog. “His whole career has been focused on personal gain and public division.”
DeSmog revealed in April that over 70 percent of Farage’s personal benefactors are based abroad – including Harborne, the Thailand-based crypto investor who has gifted flights and accommodation to Farage worth £85,453 since July 2024.
Meanwhile, Reform’s policy positions seem to align closely with the interests of its donors.
Farage has lobbied against regulation of the crypto industry, promising a UK “crypto revolution” if he becomes prime minister, and has shares in digital treasury company Stack BTC. He is due to speak at a crypto-backed conference this week, despite the furore over his gifts from crypto billionaires.
As revealed by DeSmog, Reform has also accepted £24 million from oil and gas interests while denying basic climate science and advocating for the dramatic expansion of fossil fuel production.
The government is currently considering how to reform the political finance system to limit the influence of major donors on UK democracy, with a growing number of MPs calling for a cap on the amount that can be donated by any one individual or organisation. Reform has been lobbying for the rules to remain the same.
Nigel Farage reminds you that he’s the man that brought you Brexit and asks what could possibly go wrong.Nigel Farage urges you to ignore facts and reality and be a climate science denier like him and his Deputy Richard Tice. He says that Reform UK has received £Millions and £Millions from the fossil fuel industry to promote climate denial and destroy the planet.Elon Musk urges you to be a Fascist like him, says that you can ignore facts and reality then.
In Greater London, the number of days over 30C and nights over 18C more than quadrupled in the last decade, compared with 1961-1990. Photograph: Anadolu/Getty Image
Annual State of the UK Climate analysis finds last four years in UK are in top five hottest on record
The UK’s climatic extremes are becoming increasingly normal, a report has found, with last year the hottest on record and further “unprecedented changes” likely to break the record again soon.
Data stretching back to 1884 shows the UK has never experienced a year as hot as 2025, according to the annual State of the UK Climate report, with temperatures pushed to dizzying heights by carbon pollution clogging the atmosphere.
Average temperatures have increased across most of the UK
The country experienced its warmest spring and summer on record last year, while England was hit by its driest spring in a century.
The report comes as the UK faces the third deadly heatwave to have scorched Europe over the last two months. On Tuesday, the Met Office said the UK had already recorded as many 30C (86F) days in 2026 as in the extraordinarily hot year of 1976.
“What we used to think of as extreme, we increasingly consider as normal,” said Mike Kendon, a scientist at the National Climate Information Centre and lead author of the report. “We are seeing unprecedented changes continuing … and every year adds to this body of evidence.”
Donald Trump urges you to be a Climate Science denier like him. He says that he makes millions and millions for destroying the planet, Burn, Baby, Burn and Flood, Baby, Flood.Nigel Farage urges you to ignore facts and reality and be a climate science denier like him and his Deputy Richard Tice. He says that Reform UK has received £Millions and £Millions from the fossil fuel industry to promote climate denial and destroy the planet.Orcas discuss Donald Trump and the killer apes’ concept of democracy. Front Orca warns that Trump is crashing his country’s economy and that everything he does he does for the fantastically wealthy.
